About Me (Revised)

Family

I was born in 1931 in Nebraska USA as the oldest son of parents who only had high school educations. Although both of them came from large families, I only had one younger brother. I am the father of three grown children by my first wife, eight grandchildren, and several great grandchildren. Since I’ve been married four times because of three divorces, my family is quite broken and my current wife died peacefully in our living room at the end of 2022; but I’ve learned some important lessons through my marital experiences and failures. I only wish that I had learned them sooner than so much later.

Education and training

I was called to become a minister in a Youth For Christ meeting in Los Angeles in 1950. I was licensed to preach by my local church in Omaha in 1953 and 1957, and by another local church in 1959. I got a BA in Sociology from the Municipal University of Omaha in 1956, and I got my BD degree in New Testament from Central Baptist Theology Seminary in 1960. I was ordained by the First Baptist Church of Beloit Kansas on the recommendation of the representatives from the Judson Association of American Baptist Churches of Kansas in 1960. I have additional graduate level studies in psychology and journalism at two state universities. I have received special training in group leadership, planning and organizational development, and fund raising during my years of service as a minister.

General Work Experience

I am now an old retired Baptist minister with a wide range of experience in secular and church positions. The secular positions include these: swimming instructor and life guard; postal clerk and grocery clerk; sales of shoes, insurance, printing services, telemarketing of business services and Christian resources, and several door-to-door products; private security officer and prison correction’s officer; driver for delivery route, taxi, and limo; office manager for a state agency and office secretary for a church executive; social case worker; public relations and fund raising writer for a private college, and associate director on the staff of a professional fund-raising firm; janitor for an office cleaning service.

The church related positions include these: licensed preacher in a Christian center while going to college; pastor and interim pastor of several local churches; director of Christian education in two different local churches, and Baptist chaplain and instructor in the School of Religion at a state university; designer and writer and editor of curriculum resources on the national staff of a denomination as well as for an international organization of denominations; served on two committees of the National Council of Churches of Christ, vice-chairman and chairman of the Religious Education Section of the Adult Education Association of America, vice-president and president of the Chicago Chapter of the Religious Public Relations Council; marketing and fund-raising professional on the staff of a Christian college and also a seminary; residence manager for a home of mentally handicapped adults operated by a state church agency; webmaster for my church’s website and one of my own that includes a blog after I retired. God has blessed me with these various positions of service that were interrupted by about twelve years of various secular jobs because of my personl marital problems as he patiently and graciously taught me some valuable lessons

My Basic Personal Creed of Christian Doctrine

After years of extensive ministry as a servant of God and education and training in the nature and will of God, I have composed this brief statement of my beliefs from the Spirit’s instructive guidance of my mind apart from the details of any theological systems, histories of biblical documents and their interpretations, church history, philosophical or cultural perspectives on these matters, or the summary conclusions of other servants of God.

  1. God is the only spiritual being who has unlimited power and unlimited wisdom of and over everything that exists to which he has unlimited access. He is the uncreated being who exists and functions in the Persons of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit who each contain all of his attributes. God is perfectly holy and loving in his nature, lacking in nothing that is ultimately and eternally good.
  2. God through his Persons is the only creator of both the spiritual and the physical realms of existence and all of their inhabitants, and He is the source of their living powers and the designer of the operations for these realms and their inhabitants.
  3. All true information regarding God, his nature, his will, and his work in his creation with all of his created angelic and human beings is distributed by Him directly to His creatures who are designed by Him to receive it in various ways of revelation by His Spirit.
  4. The purposes of God’s creation and work are basically to bring the spiritual and physical realms of existence with their inhabitants into a harmonious loving eternal relationship with Him for His glory and joy.
  5. The work of God is accomplished by the cooperative trusting and loving freely offered responses of His created angels and human beings who are motivated by His love rather than being automatically implemented by His creative design of their natures. For his human creatures this quality is part of their nature from being created in His “image”.
  6. The methods and formats of God’s revelation vary from time to time throughout history. They include His direct personal activities through His Spirit and His Son, stories of their activities, verbal instructions and laws and teachings regarding his will and nature to His human creatures that are delivered directly by the inspiration of His Spirit into the hearts and minds of these creatures that He has selected to share with Him in His eternal existence and work. The format for His revelation includes written documents from His anointed messengers and teachers, and especially in the life and teachings of His incarnated Son, Jesus, as a human being in this world, and it has been published in a book of these documents called the Bible. The various factors of language, human history and culture and systems of thought, political authority, and religious systems and their authorities cannot be the absolute authority for the truth of God’s revelation that always resides in Him and His Spirit.
  7. The historic work of God since the rebellion of Eve and Adam, God’s initial human creatures in His physical realm of existence, has been to redeem His physical realm from the domination of Satan, the rebellious angel who secured temporary dominion over the earth when Eve and Adam disobeyed God by seeking to claim the knowledge of “good and evil” for themselves rather than trusting God for this wisdom. This work will culminate in the establishment of the Kingdom of God in this earth under the direct personal rule of Jesus, His Son, for 1000 years to be followed by His judgment of angelic and human rebels and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth that will be ordered by His wise and loving will.
  8. Salvation from the judgment of God against those who have rebelled against His loving authority is secured for those human beings whom He selects to receive the unearned blessings of His forgiving grace. Such grace can be confirmed upon them because Jesus, His Son, paid the penalty for their rebellious acts by His death on a Cross and they have humbly repented from their rebellious acts and in obedient acts and attitudes of faith, which is basically expressed by their confession that "Jesus is Lord", made efforts to sacrifice their selfish wills and ambitions to the transforming power of the Spirit in their personal lives to make them into “new creatures” who are fit to share in personal relationship with God forever. Salvation is a cooperative work of God with his human creatures. It is not an accomplishment by any of them.

I believe that this statement of my creed is basically in accord with God’s true nature and will for me in my life and called service for Him. I am glad to discuss it with anybody, but I am not going to debate its various doctrines with anyone. Every individual should probably compose their own creed for the “hope” that they claim in their relationship with God, their creator.

On October 30, 2021, after I had a severe episode of my possible death from a serious physical problem in my lungs on October 19th and six days in the hospital, I finally surrendered a major part of my heart and mind to God that I had been holding for my own desires and choices for my own pleasures and comforts in spite of His anointed blessings on my efforts to serve Him through decades of my life. After listening to an old sermon by Billy Graham on TBN in our home, I called their prayer line. In a conversaton with the prayer counselor who answered my call, I confessed my rependence and ask him to pray for God’s forgiving grace and transforming and renewing work in my mind. He prayed a very complete and appropriate prayer for me, and God heard our prayer and immediately God resumed His transforming work in me. I am now experiencing His peace and moment by moment guidance and strength in my daily life as I seek to faithfully press on in the service to which God has called me and to operate this website. God is very good, and I am praising Him with every breath that He continues to give to me from this day, March 13, 2023, until He is through with me. I am finally fully surrendered to Him. There is no other way for me live in a personal relationship with Him, my creator, and Jesus, my Lord and Savior, and the Spirit, my Helper.

But, I am not yet perfect. The Spirit has not yet completed His transforming work in my heart and mind. I am still a work in process in God’s sactifying work in my life. The Spirit has given me a new heart with passion for the “things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5-6, Phiippians 4:8-9). He is also renewing my mind with memories of His special wise and loving guidance in my life. The Spirit has also given me a second mind, my computer, that has many of the world’s and the Spirit’s products displayed for me as I choose moment by moment what I want to do and to use in my daily activities. But, sometimes my immature mind gets me caught in a battle with the Spirit’s wise guidance, and I have to struggle through the process of surrendering my selfish thoughts and possible choices for the wise choices that the Spirit is instructing me to make. God’s grace and transforming power is always avaiable to me, so I am learning how to trust His Spirit more consistently in my moments and to give these battles to the Spirit so that He can produce His loving victories in my daily. This is my testimony.

An invitation

Feel free to contact me with any of your questions regarding my background or any of my statements on this website. I will try to answer them for you. I pray that you will be blessed by your visit to my website. I would love to hear from you.